It’s hard to decide which was the worst part about tonight’s SVU: the decision to cast convicted rapist Mike Tyson as a rape victim, or a storyline so convoluted it had the entire NYPD Special Victims Unit working to exonerate the Ohio prisoner he portrayed. The most redeeming thing about the episode was the cathartic experience of seeing Tyson behind bars.

Recap:

Within the first few seconds of “Monster’s Legacy,” a stern gymnastics coach is stabbed multiple times in the groin. Don’t get attached, folks, this is merely the jumping off point. Heck, it was more than a jump; it was a triple cartwheel with a backflip. If he weren’t in the ICU, the neutered gymnastics coach would have approved.

See, the young janitor who did the stabbing (and who subsequently choked a fellow prisoner while riding New York’s least-secure prison bus) is a long-ago victim of childhood sex abuse at an upstate summer camp, and suffering from a form of PTSD that makes him attack men he suspects of pedophilia.

“Noted,” says Cragen when he learns of this mitigating information. “We’ll tell the DA.”